ALEC support wanes: Kraft abandons conservative group

Reynolds American spokeswoman Jane Seccombe said the company plans to continue to participate with the group. “We believe the organization provides a valuable forum for sharing of ideas and fostering better understanding of a broad range of both legislative and business issues,” she said in a statement.

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“We don’t agree with every position that ALEC has, but then, we don’t agree with every position that a lot of organizations that we work with,” said Pfizer Inc. spokesman Peter O’Toole, noting Pfizer’s involvement with other groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

“We participate because the legislators that are members of ALEC, they make decisions that affect our business on a daily basis, so we think it’s an important place to sit and listen, and to participate when we’re asked to participate about things that we know something about.”

Corporations that continue to back ALEC may soon find themselves at the center of public pressure campaigns.

“We’re planning to move forward with other targets next week,” said Color of Change executive director Rashad Robinson. He declined to specify which companies would be in their cross hairs. “There’s a number of corporations that we are in process with, and that we are sort of moving to the same next steps that we sort of just did on Coke.”

ALEC spokeswoman Kaitlyn Buss on Thursday said the group’s members include more than 500 representatives from foundations, businesses and individual donors, but declined to comment on the corporate withdrawals.

In a statement on its website, ALEC criticized media coverage of the group’s ties to the “Stand Your Ground” law, saying that Florida’s law was the basis for ALEC’s model bill, not the other way around.

Kraft, Coke, Pepsi...all make snacks for people who can't afford to build and run their own think tanks like say, oh I don't know...the Koch brothers. When capitalism and the free market mesh this perfectly, it's quite a sight. The Trayvon story is evolving every day, which if you know anything about the police blotter is par for the course.

Coke is smart, like all the businesses that prayed at Limbaugh's feet and Komen too. All are toxic and must be avoided. Watch more vendors quietly leave the room, filled with the smelly fumes - it doesn't pass the smell test, as lawyers used to say. Hey Conservative extremists, keep up the war on Women, Minorities, Immigrants and the Middle Class and see where it takes you. You'll end up exactly where Scotty Walker is going -- bye bye.

Gee Jack you mean that Fox, Newsmax, Rush don't fudge or manufactures news? Stand your ground is great for at home, but it doesn't mean that it gives you the right to chase down trouble. Look how much the rate went up in florida after the law went into effect. Even the gangs were using it and a judge down there even allowed a woman that chased a man a block down the street to use it to get off the hook. So take your lapdog fox news and go hide. This group isn't supporting protecting their lives or property it is supporting the Kochs and the idea of vigilante justic.

The free market at work again. Kraft is a corporation concerned with its bottom line, as is its right and responsibility to its stockholders. Any freedom loving capitalist should support Kraft's decision.

The Stand Your Ground law is NOT at the center (or even the periphery) of the Trayvon Martin case. The law is completely inapplicable to the case, no matter what theory of events you believe. The only people claiming that it is are those trying to exploit this tragedy in order to push their own political agenda.

If Zimmerman was the initial aggressor, and started the physical confrontation, then he cannot claim any form of self-defense, let alone Stand Your Ground. The legal option to stand one's ground rather than retreat only applies to the victim of an attack, not the aggressor. On the other hand, if Zimmerman's version of events is true (i.e., if he can legitimately claim self-defense), then Martin had him pinned on the ground and he had no option to retreat. Stand Your Ground only applies to cases where the victim of an attack has the option to retreat, but instead chooses to stand his ground. If Zimmerman was pinned on the ground as he claims, then he cannot claim Stand Your Ground, and would instead be covered under the basic self-defense law. In fact, if he's telling the truth, he would be justified under the simple self-defense laws of every single state, even those with Duty to Retreat laws (since he wouldn't have been able to retreat). And his lawyer has already said that if he does have to mount a defense in court, Stand Your Ground will not be a part of it, because it doesn't apply to this case.

More importantly though is the fact that Stand Your Ground is not some radical new NRA attempt to change US laws. Stand Your Ground has ALWAYS been the common law in the entire US. We have over 150 years of Supreme Court precedent that has consistently ruled just that, topped off by Brown v. US, where a unanimous court, made up of some of the most prominent liberal justices to ever serve, ruled that there is and never has been any duty to retreat in the face of violent attack under US common law. That means that unless a state specifically passes a Duty to Retreat law (something that the Brown court said was completely unreasonable), the automatic default is (as it has always been) Stand Your Ground. In fact, only 6 states, in the latter part of the 20 Century, have ever passed such laws, so the vast majority of the US still is Stand Your Ground, even if they are not one of the 21 states that have chosen to codify what has always been the law of the entire US. The attack on these laws is nothing but a pack of lies invented to push an extremist political agenda.

Legislative for what! Pay to play right. I know someone who is in jail right now. It is Blago of Illinois. Why are these people walking not in jail. The whole system is corrupt. Take them on until they surrender.

The republicans have outsourced writing laws to ALEC because writing laws takes so much time and thinking and corporations such as the Koch boyz have so much money to pay ALEC to write laws. Its a win-win.

The founding fathers would be so proud of the Koch boyz, people-corporations for writing laws for 99% of Americans.

Kraft, Coke, Kochs and the NRA and the bunch will not stop; they just moved to another hole to continue to pervert our government.

The police officers and officers of the court in Sanford, Florida who assisted George Zimmerman in developing a story of self-defense, ought to face the same kind of justice 5 New Orleans police officers received recently. Those officers got prison sentences from 5 to 65 years for murdering and conspiracy to cover of the murders of innocent black people who were trying to escape the ravages of the storm Katrina.

Whew. I sure hated boycotting Coke & Kraft. I will look for others with ALEC to boycott. Change.org is a great organization. We naive voters don't even realize what is going on behind the scenes with these corporations (sorry, Romoney, I mean people) runing the people's business.

If George Zimmerman were black and Trayvon Martin white in the South of the not too distant past, a white mob would have stormed the Sanford police station, beat the crap out of any police officer that stood in their way, and drag Zimmerman out of his cell while being savagely beaten. Zimmerman would have been taken to the center of town, the white mob would have grown twice the , and picnic baskets would have been bought to enjoy the spectacle. Zimmerman would have been hung, and his body eviscerated and burned. Later souvenir body parts would have been sold at the corner store, and no one in the mob would ever face justice.

To learn more about the history of lynching in America, check out the extraordinary work of Walter White.